Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will bring forward legislative proposals to enable people to seek redress from companies registered in the UK whose (a) supply chains and (b) subsidiaries are found to be complicit in (i) human rights and (ii) environmental abuses.

The Government expects UK businesses to respect human rights and the environment in line with the OECD Guidelines for multinational enterprises and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

The UK’s National Contact Point for the OECD Guidelines provides a non-judicial grievance mechanism to consider complaints against UK companies which may not have observed the Guidelines in their operations and supply chains overseas.

The Government has no current plans to propose legislation to introduce corporate liability of UK companies for human rights or environmental violations either by other companies in their supply chains or by their overseas subsidiaries